Weekly Recap
This week, new NOAA Fisheries Assistant Administrator Eugenio Piñeiro
Soler released a leadership
message emphasizing the need for reliable data, sound science, and
strong partnerships, and specifically called out the importance of
engaging fishing communities in cooperative research. Also this week,
NOAA’s Satellite Products and Services Division announced
the termination of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program by
June 30th. These satellites have been widely
used in hurricane forecasting because they enable meteorologists to
track storm systems, even at night.
Closer to home, we’ve spent a fair amount of time navigating the
Department of Commerce’s new contracting system to keep the eMOLT
Program funded and operational next year, while also trying to get the
dissolved oxygen loggers ready for deployment. Before going out in the
field, each logger is carefully cleaned to remove any biofouling; then
it gets new batteries and dessicant packs, o-rings are greased or
replaced as necessary, and we run a series of calibration checks to make
sure they are functioning properly.

Figure 1 – Bundles of dissolved oxygen loggers ready for Cape Cod
Bay
Many of the loggers will be heading to Cape Cod Bay, where the eMOLT
Program works to augment the Cape
Cod Bay Study Fleet Program run by the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s
Association and Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. Another
large batch is headed north, where we are partnering with Dr. Andrew
Goode at the University of Maine to monitor dissolved oxygen around
Boothbay. We will also continue responding to individual fishermen’s
concerns about dissolved oxygen as we are able, and plan to send small
numbers of sensors to Gouldsboro, Stonington (ME), and Casco Bay as
well. A handful of new loggers are already in the water off New Jersey,
Rhode Island, and south of Cape Cod. If you are a fixed
gear fishermen and have concerns about hypoxia on your fishing
grounds, please reach let us know.
This week, the eMOLT fleet recorded 150 tows of sensorized fishing
gear totaling 1608 sensor hours underwater. We’re trying something a
little different with the plots this week and have broken them out into
northern (Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank) and southern (Southern New
England, Mid-Atlantic Bight) regions. In the northern region, the
seasonal thermocline is well defined everywhere except for well-mixed
waters Downeast (black profile) and up on top of Georges Bank (pink
profile).

Figure 2 – Temperature profiles collected by eMOLT participants
up north and out east over the last week.
Interestingly, the profiles in pink and green were taken less than 12
hours and 10 miles apart, but show very different surface conditions. Up
on the bank (pink) surface temps were just above 50 F and just north of
the bank (green), surface temps were close to 60 F. This difference is
also visible in the sea surface temp satellite imagery from earlier this
week, with both profiles coming from inside the blue circle.

Figure 3 – Sea surface temperatures from Georges Bank on June 22,
2025. Purple represents cooler water, yellow represents warmer water.
The blue circle indicates the approximate location where the two
profiles mentioned above were collected.
In the profiles from the southern part of the region, the seasonal
thermocline is ubiquitous, with surface temps in some areas (e.g. orange
profile S. of Rhode Island) almost 20 degrees (F) warmer than the
bottom.

Figure 4 – Temperature profiles collected by eMOLT participants
over the last week in the southern part of our region.
Subsurface Observations Map
In an effort to put the value of the data you all collect into
perspective, we’ve developed a map of publicly available subsurface
observations from around the region that we will update weekly. All of
these data are available on ERDDAP servers (a sort of “industry
standard” for making oceanographic data available). To orient you to the
map, the pink dots are the locations of buoys operated by the Northeast
Regional Association of Coastal Ocean Observing Systems (NERACOOS) that
include subsurface observations of temperature and salinity. Blue dots
are observations from sensors on fishing vessels collected by
participants in the eMOLT Program, one of the Commercial Fisheries
Research Foundation’s programs, or one of Ocean Data Network’s programs.
These observations are mostly water temperature, although some of
vessels also deploy salinity and dissolved oxygen sensors. Red dots are
observations from gliders affiliated with the Rutgers University Center
for Ocean Observing Leadership and include a range of variables
including temperature, salinity, chlorophyll levels, dissolved oxygen,
nitrates, pH, and more. Brown dots are observations from the Argo
Program, which deploys floats around the world, and include a range of
variables including temperature, dissolved oxygen, salinity,
chlorophyll, turbidity, and nitrates. Finally, purple dots are
observations taken aboard the M/V Oleander using an Expendable
Bathythermograph (XBT). These observations include temperature and
salinity. You can see that on the shelf, there really isn’t much
subsurface data available in many areas without observations from the
fleet.

Figure 5 – Map of realtime, publicly accessible subsurface
measurements collected over the last month here in the Northeastern
United States. Fishing vessel observations (blue) represent aggregated
data from eMOLT, Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation, and Ocean
Data Network.
To learn more about the programs shown on this map, check out their
websites:
Fishing Vessel Ocean Observing Network Continues Sensor
Intercomparison Research
The FVON sensor intercomparison testing work shifted to Japan
recently, with Tetsutaro Takikawa and his team from Nagasaki
University’s Collaborative Research Promotion Unit testing the sensors
dockside earlier this week before heading out to sea for a research trip
beginning June 25th.

Figure 6 – Testing the sensors together to make sure everything
works before heading out to sea.
System Hardware Upgrade List
The following vessels remain on our list for hardware upgrades. If
you aren’t on the list and think you should be, please reach out.
Note that this list is different from our new install
queue.
- F/V Kaitlyn Victoria
- F/V Kyler C
- F/V Noella C
- F/V Sea Watcher I
Bottom Temperature Forecasts
Doppio
This week, 60.7% of bottom temperature observations were within 2
degrees (F) of the Doppio forecasted value at those points. Bottom temps
along the Maine coast, much of Southern New England, and out on Georges
Bank were close to the forecasted values. Temperatures south and west of
Long Island were cooler than forecasted, and the model struggled to
resolve bottom temperatures around Cape Cod.

Figure 7 – Performance of the Doppio forecast’s bottom
temperature layer over the last week relative to observations collected
by eMOLT participants. Red dots indicate areas where bottom temperature
observations were warmer that predicted. Blue dots indicate areas where
bottom temperature observations were cooler than predicted. Bottom
temperature observations are compared with the most recent forecast run
available before the observation was made.
